"I tried to set my house on fire'

When they arrived at her Forsythia Court town home on Dec. 4, 2007, Richland Township police officers found Rochelle Loy standing in the frigid cold on the front stoop in her pajamas.

"She said she had just tried to burn her house down because she wanted to die," said officer Matthew Lawhead, testifying during the prelude to Loy's trial, which began with jury selection Tuesday in Bucks County Court.

Loy, 34, is charged with attempted homicide, arson, risking a catastrophe, endangering the welfare of a child and recklessly endangering another person, for trying but failing to set fires in three different spots in her home, according to police.

During a pretrial hearing on the admissability of statements Loy made to police at the scene, Lawhead said he did not know until a few minutes after arriving there that Loy's 4-year-old daughter was upstairs sleeping.

Once inside the home, Lawhead testified that he encountered an unpleasant haze throughout the first floor and discovered burned drapes in the front and back rooms, and a burned spot on the carpet.

When he asked Loy what two nine-volt batteries were doing sitting next to a bottle of butane in the kitchen, she told him she had removed them from smoke detectors to avoid waking her daughter.

That statement should be tossed, argued defense attorney Andrew Schneider, because it was made while she was handcuffed in the back seat of a police cruiser without being read her rights.

Prosecutor Marc Furber said Lawhead was simply trying to determine if the house was safe.

Loy was taken to Grandview Hospital for a mental health assessment and later arrested by Richland Township police on attempted murder charges, after she allegedly made a phone call to a police investigator asking about the case.

Officer Ray Aleman testified Tuesday that someone whose voice matched Loy's called him to ask about the incident a couple of days later, asking if there was a warrant for her arrest.

He said he asked the caller, whom he later identified as Loy, why she was asking.

"I tried to set my house on fire with me and my daughter inside," Aleman said the caller responded.